


A New Morning

by beekeepercain



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol, Biblical References, Children, F/M, Heaven, Lucifer | Nick, Vessel Fic, Vessels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-16
Updated: 2013-03-16
Packaged: 2017-12-05 12:28:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/723314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beekeepercain/pseuds/beekeepercain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost."</i><br/>- Titus 3:5</p>
            </blockquote>





	A New Morning

**Author's Note:**

> I love this dude. That's all. Pouring out headcanon and skipping memory sequences like a pro.

 ~*~ ~*~ ~*~

He drew breath, or exhaled - it was the last thing he felt before going numb. His scorched, torn consciousness tried to hang onto the light and the flashes of the smell of dust and, was that rotten wood? He tried to move his muscles, tried to breathe, but it was in vain, his mind flooded, a last shot of fear and then a shiver and silence.

The echoes of steps and voices and the memories of the dull scents and days before lingered for a while as he drifted, but like a dream, they scattered from him little by little as he felt he resurfaced somewhere. Slowly, he sensed again, and a thought followed his reawakening. He felt his lips curving into a smile.  
It had all just been a dream - a long, painful, stressful nightmare, but only one of the many, nothing unusual there. He heard himself chuckle as he readjusted. Giving himself over to Lucifer? Hardly realistic.

Yet, something was definitely awry. Where was he? He could smell the grass, freshly out of a cool night as the distinct tint of dew intertwined with it. Was he outside?  
Why did it feel so hard to open his eyes?

He inhaled slowly and deeply and decided he had been much too drunk the night before, even though he had no recollection of drinking at all. He'd sworn he wouldn't, he knew the risks - he wouldn't betray his family by sinking that low after they'd...  
He coughed. And finally, yes, he could open his eyes as well. He was lying on the street on very far from home. Damn it... should the neighbours see. Weakly, he pulled himself up on his knees and patted off the dust and dirt from first his palms and arms and then his jeans and shirt. He brought his cold fingers across his face and felt the prickling of his unshaved jawline all too well. Cautiously he glanced around him, seeing nobody.  
Of course that did not mean no one had already passed him on their way to work or wherever, but for what it was worth, the current silence of the neighbourhood made him feel relieved. As he picked himself up, he noticed he didn't feel hungover or anything like he'd recently touched alcohol at all - he felt perfectly normal, if not somehow lighter and even healthier than usual. It was strange.

So was the amnesia he seemed to be suffering of. How he'd ended up there? Had someone drugged him? Had he finally lost it and ended up with some sort of a religious psychosis, the sort where his guilt had taken the shape of Lucifer and literally taken control of him for weeks?  
In fact, now that he pressed his mind harder, he couldn't really say it had been "for weeks" that Lucifer had resided inside him in what he still believed to be a dream and nothing more. This was a mindgame he was playing to try figure out the actual puzzle he was facing, as nothing he could think of really made more sense than the psychosis theory - it'd occur to him, or he might recover his memory, if he just kept himself occupied with the mystery.

It could have been for more than weeks. It could have been months, or even a year. He really could not be sure.

"Come on, Nick. Get a grip now," he muttered to himself under his breath.  
He'd tucked his hands inside the pockets of his jeans and he walked on towards his house. The strangest thing about his condition was that it didn't really bother him all that much. It was like the loss of memory he'd suffered really didn't matter to him like it should have. It was probably serious, he could have hit his head or perhaps he'd been drugged - perhaps it was his mental health that had given up, but it wasn't _normal_ , so why the hell was he treating it like it was?

He stopped in front of the gate and pulled his right hand out of his pocket. He laid his fingertips on the cold metal and swallowed thickly as he eyed the porch across the yard so close to him now. The house would be empty, no matter how messed up his mind was.  
And if there was someone in there, he could be certain he'd lost it.

Slowly, he pushed the gate open and closed it behind him carefully and quietly. Each step he took made him more and more nervous for a reason he couldn't quite understand. He swallowed thickly as he pulled out his keys and opened the front door.

There was a warm scent in the air, the scent of freshly baked bread in fact, lingering in the hallway. Nick left his shoes by the door, never once glancing down as he did so. His eyes were on the clean corridor in front of him and the scents and the feel of life in his empty house, the strange feeling that this wasn't going as he'd expected, and that... that everything was alright now.

He peered into the kitchen and saw things he hadn't seen there for a while. Oven mittens left carelessly on the table... a towel covering the bread he'd smelled when he entered the house. His heart was racing now.

With long, hurried steps and a drumming in his ears he almost ran upstairs - he crossed the short space to the door and pulled it open and...  
... and he fell on his knees, unable to make a sound.

Sarah shifted, rose up, and faced him. Her expression at first was surprised, then it lit up and she smiled and she stood up and ran across the space and her presence was everywhere around Nick's body - the man responded to it by grabbing her as tightly as he could.  
"I wasn't expecting you this soon," Sarah spoke into his ear, caressing his short hair and kissing his forehead as he held onto her nightgown and sobbed.

He couldn't control that, or anything else for that matter. She smelled so good and she felt so alive and he had to be dreaming and these dreams were unfair because he always woke up and -

"Nick... Nick, baby?"

"Sarah..."  
  
"Come see our son," she said and helped him up.

For a moment, she held him by the chin and looked into his eyes and somehow through his disbelief and doubt, Nick realised this was real, and so was his dream.  
"Am I..." he begun and feared the words he'd speak next, so he replaced them with a more comforting ones, "Is this Heaven?"

Sarah smiled, and there was something melancholic in her eyes. She nodded so minutely it hardly showed at all, then she took him by the hand and pulled him back into the corridor.  
"He didn't want to wait for you, I'm sorry you missed so much - he's growing, Nick - our son's growing up here. He was so eager to be big... I couldn't hold him back for you."

Nick swallowed.  
"How big has he grown?" he asked, the absurdity of the moment bothering him so little it didn't even matter.

Sarah stopped by the door and laid a hand on the handle.  
"No bigger than he would have been if God hadn't called for us," she said softly and opened the door.  
Sunlight danced on the small bed in the room and one more tear escaped upon the man's cheek as he saw his son there, so beautiful and so strong and so alive again.

His legs trembled as he stepped forwards.  
He reached a hand for the soft hair of the little boy, and as he leaned down to kiss his head, he couldn't believe he was really standing there, that in death, he'd been forgiven.


End file.
